


Things You Might Find When You Move

by Bookworm1063



Series: CO Countdown 2020 [5]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Carry On Countdown (Simon Snow), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27781474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookworm1063/pseuds/Bookworm1063
Summary: There’s a couple of certificates from riding competitions, which I hang from a string of fairy lights in my room. There’s an award for perfect attendance from my first year at Watford (before I really got sucked into Simon’s drama). I shred it and drop the pieces into the trash can.There are a few photos, which I start adding to the fairy light string—my parents, Helen, my Normal friends. The last three make me hesitate.On her first night in California, Agatha unpacks some reminders of her old life.
Series: CO Countdown 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2026988
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: Agatha Wellbelove fics, Carry On Countdown 2020





	Things You Might Find When You Move

I can hear the traffic on the freeway from my new flat. The dog doesn’t like it; she’s been cowering under my bed for the last half hour.

She’ll have to get used to it. It’s not going to stop for either of us.

I told myself I’d leave the rest of the unpacking for tomorrow morning, and now I’m lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. For now, I have the flat to myself.

I guess, if I’m going to live in America, I should start calling it an _apartment_.

I can’t get to sleep. Maybe it’s the jetlag. Maybe it’s everything that’s happened in the last few weeks. Maybe it’s knowing that most of my life is still hidden away in a stack of cardboard boxes.

I find myself in the kitchen, making a cup of tea at one in the morning, Pacific time. I take it over to the cheap sofa and sit down.

There’s a window overlooking the street, but the view is blocked by that stack of boxes. I need to get them out of here before my new roommates arrive next week.

The dog wanders out of my room and sits down on the floor at my feet, watching me expectantly. I sigh, abandon my tea on the coffee table, and open the first box.

It’s a bunch of my old school textbooks, mixed in with a few Normal romance novels and biographies. I take the Normal books back to my room and line them up neatly on a small shelf. The textbooks stay in the box, and I drag them out of my apartment, all the way down to the dumpster.

I only hesitate for a moment before throwing the whole thing in. Hopefully, there aren’t any dumpster-diving Normals around here.

The next box is a bunch of my old clothes. I plan on buying new ones, but I don’t want to go naked until then, so I hang them up in my closet.

There are posters from my old room, hairbrushes and makeup, a few more books, and a couple of trinkets I’d kept on my dresser at home. I put them all away in my bedroom.

Someone packed my old riding gear, even though my horse is on the other side of the Atlantic. I think riding is one of the only things I’ll really miss about England. Maybe there’s a place to ride around here. I tuck the gear away under my bed, and make a mental note to look into it.

One of the boxes has a large envelope tucked into the bottom. I vaguely remember throwing a bunch of papers from around my room in here when I packed.

There’s a couple of certificates from riding competitions, which I hang from a string of fairy lights in my room. There’s an award for perfect attendance from my first year at Watford (before I really got sucked into Simon’s drama). I shred it and drop the pieces into the trash can.

There are a few photos, which I start adding to the fairy light string—my parents, Helen, my Normal friends. The last three make me hesitate.

One of them is of Simon and I. He’s wearing a suit, and I’m in a pale blue dress. It’s from Christmas, our fifth year, right after we started dating. His arms are around my waist, my arms are around his neck, and we’re looking at each other, smiling.

I feel like it would be a weird photo to hang. Simon and I broke up over six months ago, and it’s not like we still talk.

I toss it into a desk drawer. Maybe I’ll send it to Penny.

The second photo is of Penny, Simon, and I. We’re sitting on the sofa at my house, arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning at the camera. We’re young. I don’t remember exactly when this was taken, but it must have been before fourth year.

I hang it. Way at the end of the string, tucked into the corner, where I can ignore it if I want to.

The last photo is the one of Lucy, Davy, and Mitali.

I thought about returning it to Professor Bunce a few times, but I always ended up forgetting, or deciding against it. I run my fingers over the image of Lucy. She looks my age.

What happened to her? Am I going to run into her at the supermarket, or the beach? Is she still living here? If she did have a kid, they would be about my age.

I don’t know if I want to meet her.

The dog followed me back into my bedroom. She’s standing by the door, wagging her tail, watching me.

“Lucy,” I say. Trying out the name.

The dog barks.

“Okay,” I say. “Lucy it is.”

Lucy sits, and I toss the picture of the Mage into my desk drawer. It lands next to the photo of Simon and me.

I look at the photos, side by side. There’s something about the color of Simon’s hair in the picture, and the Mage’s features, younger than any of us saw them in life, and the glint in Lucy’s eyes.

Probably a coincidence. Or a trick of the camera.

I close the drawer and go back into the living room. The boxes sit piled next to the front door now, empty. I’ll take them down to recycle in the morning—or later today, I guess. It’s almost three o’clock.

I clean up my tea from earlier, refill Lucy’s water bowl, and crawl back into bed. On my nightstand, my phone buzzes with a text. It’s probably Penelope. Or my mother. Maybe she finally found my wand.

I put the phone on silent and toss it to the floor, but I still don’t fall asleep until dawn.


End file.
